Borders on Text Frames

[DavidDoesAffinity]

 

I’m an occasional DTP user, creating flyers, price lists and DVD sleeves for my main business of Video Production. I come from an old version of Quark. As with Photo, learning the differences to Photoshop, I’m doing the same with Publisher.

I’m confused as to the correct way to put a border on a text frame. In Quark it’s a right click to Modify and then a choice of Borders.

As I start to redesign my Quark projects in Publisher, last week, using a picture frame with a text frame, they linked and would reposition together but today on a new project this is not happening without me grouping the layers.

Can someone point me to the correct way of having a text frame linked with a border.

As a secondary question In Quark there are a variety of Borders – ie thin-thick- thin. As Publisher is currently limited for choice, can someone point me to a “Border resource”?

[MEB]

Hi DavidDoesAffinity,
To add a simple stroke to a text frame go to menu View ▸ Studio ▸ Text Frame and give it a stroke width and colour in the general section on top. There's no presets nor the flexibility (corner types) we offer for Picture Frames (click the cog button in the context toolbar with a picture frame selected to see what I mean) so currently anything different must be created with a customised shape(s) placed below the text frame and grouped with it eventually.

[DavidDoesAffinity]

Many Thanks for your prompt response and pointing me in the right direction.

I'm still trying to work out how my earlier ungrouped picture and text frame are linked but at least I now know the correct way to proceed.

[Graphogoddess]

Looking for a way to have only one or two lines as a border on a text frame, not around the entire frame. Is there a way?

Edited April 3, 2022 by Graphogoddess
clarity

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Graphogoddess said:

Looking for a way to have only one or two lines as a border on a text frame, not around the entire frame. Is there a way?

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

You could consider not having a border on the Text Frame, but having it on the paragraph(s) within the Text Frame. There is a Paragraph text style named Box that uses Paragraph Decorations to build the box, and you have control over which sides are used. You could use Box, then adjust the text style. Or you could base your own text style on Box and set the decorations differently. Or you could just use the Decorations section of the Paragraph panel.

[fde101]

On 4/3/2022 at 2:30 PM, Graphogoddess said:

Looking for a way to have only one or two lines as a border on a text frame, not around the entire frame. Is there a way?

Hi @Graphogoddess, what @walt.farrell described above is a good explanation if you are asking to have a border around part of a text frame (one paragraph instead of around the frame itself).

If you meant for example that you wanted only the top and bottom lines of the border around the frame itself, potentially with multiple paragraphs in the frame but only one border, I don't believe there is currently a good way to accomplish this in Publisher.  What you could do as a workaround is to disable the stroke on the frame completely then create the lines at the top and bottom of the frame by using the pen tool with snapping enabled, then group the lines with the frame to keep them together.

[walt.farrell]

18 minutes ago, fde101 said:

If you meant for example that you wanted only the top and bottom lines of the border around the frame itself, potentially with multiple paragraphs in the frame but only one border, I don't believe there is currently a good way to accomplish this in Publisher.  

Paragraph Decorations will work for that, too. Here's a quick example with a top and bottom line around several paragaphs. (Very quick/dirty; obviously some more tailoring of the line position is needed.)